Beauty from the ashes…

This morning I was awake before my alarm could do its job!  It was one of those mornings where I woke up and could not get back to sleep.  I finally just got up and began my normal morning routine.  Coffee in hand, I was ready to read, write, worship, and pray!  It was going to be wonderful!  Excited that I was up earlier and would get extra quiet time this morning, I jumped right into my daily devotional reading.  Jesus Calling by Sara Young was the first stop on my morning journey.  I read the title of today’s devotional… Be Still in My Presence.  Be still?  Are you kidding me?  I finally have time to read and journal!  I might even get inspiration for a blog!  Be still?  It began like this…. Be Still in My Presence, even though countless tasks clamor for your attention.

I set aside my phone (no really….it houses my devotional app!), put down my pen and journal, turned off the worship song, and set aside my coffee.  So it began… being still.  I think it is more work to be still than it is to take charge and go through my routine.  I closed my eyes and asked the Holy Spirit to come.  And then I waited.  Tears began to flow and my emotions were all over the board.  I cried and cried and cried….. and cried some more… and tried  to listen.  I was not even sure what I was crying about… it just came from the deepest depths of my soul.  I could not keep my thoughts on any one thing for more than a few seconds.  It was like an emotional time bomb went off inside me.  I felt elated, agitated, loved, frustrated, sad, remorseful….and all in this time that I was “being still.”

At some point I looked up at the clock and realized that it was time to get ready for work.  Work?  I was exhausted and I didn’t feel like I had “accomplished anything.”  I did not have any great word from the Lord or meaningful revelation to take with me in my day.  I began to move into the next phase of my morning and noticed the sun attempting to stream through the dining room curtains.  I stood there and felt very reluctant to open them.  For outside those windows was the visual reminder of our weekend and the tragic loss of two men.  I felt sick to my stomach and dreaded opening them.  How could I not take advantage of this gift of sunshine we were having?  I decided to put on my big girls and just do it.  As I opened them up, the view that I was presented with was breathtaking.  It rained very hard yesterday and the wet world cooled way down in the night and the sun was beginning to warm things up.  The result was steam rising off of everything.  And that is when I realized what God wanted me to take away in my day… beauty from the ashes.

All of the surrounding neighborhood looked as if there had been a fire and all that was left were the smoldering ashes.  It was the quiet of morning and the message was loud and clear for me.  This past weekend was like a fierce fire storm that ravaged the land.  Left behind are hurting people and devastated hearts.  The only thing to do is to pick up and move on.  Some moments seem easier than others.  Just when I think I’ve let a bit of it go, a movie of the event plays through my mind.  The enemy is working hard to discourage me.  The view from my window made it very clear.  Out of the ashes from the weekend devastation comes the beauty.  God has and will use this to change lives.  While He did not orchestrate the accident, He is right here for everyone…… to bring hope and peace and comfort and healing… and to bring beauty from the ashes.